E3 Reactions: We are PR

I’ve never been happier with my cable TV and my unemployment than this last week. Those two factors allowed me to watch G4’s live coverage of E3. It has been a fantasy of mine to attend E3--a fantasy that hatched many intricate yet unfulfilled plans and schemes by me and my comrades. So it was a real treat to watch the big press conferences live. It was also an eye opening look into the companies that produce video games.

Nintendo was amazing. I completely understand that Nintendo is a corporation that is out for making money and all those things that the communist in me should hate. But man oh man, if sci-fi ever comes true and corporations start ruling the world, I would totally enlist in Nintendo’s army. It was delightful to listen to corporate talking heads spouting rhetoric about inclusion. Sure, they had the required “our company is the best company in the world and invest in us” speak, but the majority of their corporate message was about the inclusion of everyone in video games. “Everyone is a gamer” was the catch phrase pushed by Reggie, Miyamoto and Iwata. I wish every billion dollar company had that motto and pursued, researched, and most importantly respected all demographics. I think respect is the main difference I felt between Nintendo’s and Sony’s presentations. Sony’s press conference was terrible. Beyond all the ho hum games (except MGS4: war commentary with vampires and cyborgs, yum) Sony had what I’d like to call a bad attitude. The conference started with the worst speaker I’ve ever seen, Jack Tretton, as his Home avatar checking out some “hot chicks.” Yep, Sony started the biggest news event of the year with some good ol’ fashion cat calling. As Jack walked outside to Home’s hub, three female avatars were standing in a line all dancing, and he proceeded to “hello ladies” them. Throughout the presentation he kept referencing the “hot chicks,” and mentioned that he hoped they would stop by his hip Home pad, which was decked out in the finest of yuppie fashion. The main message I received from Sony is that they don’t regard women as serious consumers of their products and that they love materialism. It was jarring to move from watching a woman play Metroid Prime 3 on stage to Sony’s boy’s club attitude. My assumption is that Sony was upset at the record low levels of misogyny at this year’s E3, with the lack of booth babes and Nintendo’s radical ideas. Sony just needed to make up for it.

I am so disappointed in Sony. I used to be a huge fan of the Playstation and Playstation 2. I’ve said awful things about the N64 in my day, and only respected the Gamecube from afar. But now, I can’t see myself ever buying a PS3, and feeling a little ashamed of my past loves. Nintendo is a company I can feel alright giving money to, based on their mature look at the industry. We used to have a good thing Sony, why did you have to go and ruin it.